The Crafty Single Female Homeowner: There's a Wide Eyed Owl....

The last couple of years I've gotten a bit crafty for my halloween costumes. Last year, I was super girl. First, because Super Girl is awesome and second, because I was Super Girl back when I was about four. Who wouldn't want to relive those memories?

Super Girl, circa 1985/6

Super Girl, circa 2010

This costume was fairly simple - I got a Super Girl t-shirt and sewed sparkly fabric to the shoulders to create the cape. I made a simple pull on elastic waist skirt with some plain non-stretchy red fabric, that I trimmed with the red sparkly fabric (same as the cape). Since I had some left over sparkly fabric, I also made some simple arm warmers, just by sewing it into a tube and cutting out an opening for my thumb.

This year I was a little more ambitious. I saw a couple owl costumes on pinterest that were just ADORABLE.

Source: bridgetcollins.blogspot.com via Deborah on Pinterest

and

Source: blog.craftzine.com via Deborah on Pinterest

This costume required much more time, effort and supplies than last years. I picked out 5 different fabrics - a tweedy brown, a herringbone brown, silky brown, silky gold, and fleecey blaze orange. I originally planned to create two separate pieces - a skirt using an old fold over skirt from Old Navy and a brown t-shirt I bought while I was buying my fabrics. Then I figured it would be easier (duh) to do a single piece. I just so happened to have a very old cotton knit dress with maroon fabric. It was too small, so it wasn't such a waste. Since it was too small, I cut up the the sides of the dress and figured I'd just wear leggings underneath.

To make the feathers, I made a triangular (with some curves) pattern out of cardboard and then I got to cutting. I picked up the pizza cutter type fabric cutter. Which is quite a dangerous tool, if you haven't used it before. I manged to slice my finger pretty good. The slicer let me do several feathers at a time and saved my fingers from scissor cramps. I spent a lot of time cutting and watching TV.

Once I got the feathers cut, I fused them together in rows of about 8. I used fabric fuse that you iron on. I thought it would be the easiest way of quickly zipping it through the sewing machine onto the dress. I think I could have probably just stuck with pinning it all - I don't know if I necessarily saved any time.

So, iron and fuse, iron and fuse. Once I got my mom to help me figure out the sewing machine (a couple times, of course) I started zipping through it. Once I figured out what was going on I was able to get through the rows of feathers pretty quickly.

Rather than trying to figure out how to do the top with the v-neck, I used the superfluous brown t-shirt and created a capelet. To make the capelet, I just cut open the sleeves and cut the shirt at the same length of the sleeves. This essentially created a rectangle with the neck opening in the middle. Much easier to sew on rows of feathers in a rectangle than on a v-neck pattern.

The capelet went really quickly - just took an evening more of work. The costume was essentially done...but what use is a costume without a mask? Probably none at all.

I picked up a white mask with the elastic band at Joann's. White would completely clash with the costume so I also bought some fabric spray paint in a brown/copper color. BTW, do you realize how MUCH I love spray painting? I do. It went way too fast though. Enter feathers and a glue gun and a girl has a mask appropriate for halloween costumes (or masqurade balls - once I added some gold glitter spray).

Here's the complete look.

And the complete look in action. It was a giant hit at storytime the week before Halloween, won me first prize in a costume contest on Friday night (I think they took pity on my homemade costume), Sunday brunch and then at work on Halloween.